


Once More Around the Sun

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [28]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Birthday Fluff, Comfort, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Loki - Freeform, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23797705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: This year feels like the year you’ll finally be able to let your birthday pass quietly and unacknowledged. But Pepper Potts isn’t going to let that happen.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 16
Kudos: 197





	Once More Around the Sun

Something was tickling your chest. It traced a soft line between your breasts, dipping all the way down into the hollow of your navel before returning back up along the same path. At first, your mind tried to weave it into the dream you were having, but slowly your body pulled you back to wakefulness. You reached out to bat it away, fearing some sort of bug or spider, and heard Loki laugh. When you opened his eyes, he was stretched out on top of you and trailing a brilliant red rose along your skin.

“Good morning,” he murmured when he saw you looking at him. His smile broke a little bit wider across his face and he drew the rose to the side, to circle one of your nipples. More often than not lately, you had been falling asleep nude, usually after exerting yourself with him, and he’d begun to take advantage of your vulnerability and wake you up like this. You pushed the rose away, feeling a little self-conscious about what your face must look like, your bed-head, and drew the covers in to shield yourself.

“What is that?” Maybe the question was a little pointless, but who could blame you for being a little bit scrambled when you’d only just woken up and Loki was looking at you like _that_? 

“It’s a rose.” He grinned as he trailed it across your cheek and then booped the tip of your nose. You growled with frustration and might have thrown yourself out of bed, if he weren’t still on top of you, anchoring you down. 

“I know _that_. Where did it come from?” You knew perfectly well that Loki and Thor were almost certainly not at risk of catching the same disease that had brought your world crashing to a halt around you, but surely he hadn’t ventured out just to go hunting for a flower to torture you with. He hadn’t, right? Because he knew that he could bring the germs back here to you?

“A masked deliveryman brought it to your door a little bit ago. Along with several dozen others.” His face went dark, then, almost like...jealousy. “Stark sent them. Do you know anything about that?” Perhaps he could feel how antsy you were getting, because he pulled away from you so you could get out of bed. You reached for your hoodie, long since abandoned on the floor beside your bed, and pulled it on.

Of course _you_ knew what day it was, but how could Tony? You ducked out of the bedroom and into the living room, where an obscenely-large bouquet of roses was sitting on the coffee table. Somehow it dwarfed most of your furniture. It looked ridiculous. You stepped close enough to see a little envelope with the Stark Industries logo stuck into the bouquet, and opened it.

_Don’t hate me. I knew there was zero chance of you telling him if I didn’t. Happy birthday! Keep it together! -P. Potts_

You groaned at the card before stuffing it back into the tiny envelope. When you turned, Loki was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed. You would have thought that by now he knew you better than to think he had anything to fear from any other man on the planet, but there was a pretty solid hint of actual concern lurking there beneath his playacting.

“They’re from Pepper, not Tony. Relax, okay?” You gestured at him with the envelope, but you weren’t entirely certain you wanted to let him read the card. So it was your birthday. Who cared? Many many years ago, your mother had gone into labor with you. It happened literally every single day. You’d never liked to make a fuss over your birthday. When you were a kid and your parents threw you a party each year, with your entire class and all your family members, you usually ended up crying in the bathroom by the end of the night because you were so overwhelmed. In the weeks leading up to today, you’d maybe been even more excited than you’d ever been. No one could give you a hard time about just wanting to stay in tonight. No one could try to whisk you away to some dirty, crowded bar or club. Hell, no one could even drop by unannounced. Loki was really the only question mark in Mission Let Today Go By Unacknowledged, but you’d never heard a word from him or Thor about anything like birthdays in Asgard. Maybe they didn’t bother. They could live to be thousands of years old, after all, and surely they had plenty of other reasons to party and feast and however else they enjoyed themselves. You slipped the envelope into your pocket.

Loki looked skeptical as he moved a little bit closer to you. His eyes were piercing as he took you in, and his lips didn’t even twitch. You realized his plan too late. His hand shot out like a snake, easily making its way into your pocket before you knew what had hit you. He spun away from you as he pulled the card out of the envelope and you just...let him. He glanced back at you over his shoulder, and, if he was surprised that you had not thrown yourself at him to wrest the card away from him, he hid it well. “I didn’t think someone like you would ever be interested in a man like Stark...”

“I’m not!” Whatever. Let him read it. Let him be confused. While his back was turned, you slipped away to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

When you stepped out again, you had nearly forgotten the morning’s events. And even if you had, the giant flower arrangement in the living room reminded you with a jolt. Honestly, Pepper. The arrangement reeked of Tony’s taste; at one time, she would have been more likely to send a smaller, more sensible thing. Or nothing at all. There weren’t even any florists open in the state anymore—how the hell had she managed to find this many flowers in time?

Loki was in the kitchen. You’d kind of expected him to beat the bathroom door down as soon as he’d finished making sense of the card and demand an explanation, so this was kind of a nice surprise. Unless he was pissed. Sometimes, people got pissed. There was no better way to make you regret enjoying a lovely, peaceful birthday at home than having to deal with the injured egos of friends when they found out that you’d gotten exactly what you’d wanted. You dithered for a bit in the middle of the living room, trying to decide whether to let him come to you or to be the one to seek him out, but finally made a face and gave in to your instincts. You joined him in the kitchen.

He didn’t acknowledge you when you came in. He was cooking something. Eggs? It smelled good. You felt your anxious mind begin to reel out of control, pulling up all kinds of imaginary arguments before   
he’d even breathed a word to you. You forced yourself to take a deep breath and push those thoughts aside. So what if this was your first real fight? If the two of you couldn’t get through something like this, there was no hope at all.

Before long, Loki turned around and placed an empty bud vase in front of you. It was the only real vase you had in your apartment, so if those roses in the living room hadn’t come with their own, they were in for an even-quicker death. When he turned back to the stove, the vase began to glow with a gentle light. He plated whatever it was that he was cooking, but you were distracted by the vivid purple flower that had appeared. By the time he turned back around, and placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of you on the table, the flower looked almost real, like you could reach out to touch its spiky leaves. He set a plate at his own place at the table and joined you. 

“These grew in the gardens of Asgard,” he said, gesturing vaguely towards the flower. “They’d be blooming around this time of year. I always sort of liked how intense the colors were. And the leaves, if you touched them, would give you a nasty sting. I liked that. Beauty, and danger.” He stabbed his fork into his eggs and took a bite.

“I just don’t make a big deal of my birthday. It’s stupid.” You weren’t entirely sure why you felt the need to explain yourself to him, except that maybe he seemed...subdued. 

“Miss Potts wanted to make it a big deal,” he said. His voice wasn’t accusatory, really, but it still pressed you for more information. You squirmed in your seat and tried to take a bite of breakfast. “Mortals, in general, make a big deal of birthdays, don’t they?”

“A lot of them do, yeah...” He was a hell of a cook, especially for someone who’d grown up being served in a palace. And he’d made you breakfast. The two of you took turns cooking dinner, but often, for breakfast and lunch, you did your own things. 

He nodded to himself and returned his attention to his plate. You hated this quietness from him. He didn’t seem angry, but it was clear that he was hurt. That was absolutely not your intention at all. Still, sensing that it was not your turn to speak, you ate quietly. Let him gather his thoughts.

Sure enough, he put down his fork and drew in a breath. “So what is it? Why did you keep this from me? Surely I have not made you think that I would in any way resist the chance to celebrate you?”

Ugh. You shook your head, then tilted it backwards to study the ceiling for a moment. “That’s the thing! It’s silly! I don’t need to be celebrated for waking up three-hundred-sixty-five days in a row. I know you love me. I know my friends love me. I don’t need a special day for it, because you show me all the time anyway. Do you do birthdays in Asgard?”

He shook his head, glancing up at you only very quickly. “Not the way you do, no. We have so many, it’d just get tedious. But we have parties. We have celebrations. They’re not just for waking up every day, either. They’re for celebrating someone’s accomplishments, the good things they bring to the world.

“See, that’d be better...” Maybe you could stomach birthdays if they didn’t happen each year and they centered around the good things that people did. Maybe. But then again, you could imagine that making you uncomfortable too, like you were only doing the good things to get the acknowledgment. Why couldn’t you just get through the day and exist in the world without people feeling the need to single you out?

Loki perked up a little at your words, though. “Then _that_ is how I will celebrate you today.” He rose from his seat and took your empty plates to the sink. When you tried to get up to do the dishes, he pushed you aside with his body and shook his head fiercely. “To begin with, love, you constantly go out of your way to look after me. You serve me with a devotion that would be unrivaled in Asgard. But I want to do the same for you.”

Your cheeks burned hot and you made another futile attempt to take the sponge from Loki. He tutted at you. “Loki, come on. You cooked. The dishes are _my_ job. We agreed.”

“You have brought me light and warmth where before there were only shadows and cold.” He said it as though it were some way to refute what _you_ had just said. Your cheeks only burned hotter. It seemed that, if you tried to argue with him about this, he’d only hit you with more nonsense like that, so you fell back with another groan and went to try to get something done for work.

After a little while, Loki sidled up beside you and placed your favorite mug down on the table beside you. It was steaming, and you caught the familiar scent of your favorite tea wafting from its contents. When you looked up, Loki gave you a brilliant smile and leaned down to kiss you. He cupped your cheeks in his palms and pulled back only far enough to speak. “The work you do is providing people with endless comfort in this time of distress.” You started to pull back, but he maintained a tight grip on you. “You are giving them strength. You are carrying their worlds on your perfect shoulders, and you do it all without any desire to be recognized for it.” You started to protest, to tell him that it was your _job_ , that your paycheck was plenty of recognition, but he pressed his lips to yours again and kissed the words away. When he finally slipped backwards away from you, your head continued to spin dizzily for several long moments.

Some time later, he brought you lunch—just a sandwich and chips, but still enough to make you blush again. You closed your computer. You hated eating while you worked. Thankfully, Loki joined you. He flashed you a dangerous smile as he sat, and you braced yourself for whatever it was that he had to say, but he let you eat in peace for a while. When the both of you were nearly finished, he reached out to take your hand. He pressed a delicate kiss to your palm and then curled your fingers in around it as though it were something you could hold.

“The quiet strength of your body is remarkable. Every time I get lucky enough to watch you do your yoga in the mornings, I feel blessed. Sometimes I see you scowl at your computer screen even as you flex your body into shapes I didn’t even know were possible. And I have never once seen you try to use that strength for anything but helping people.” He brought your hand to his lips so he could kiss each of your knuckles in turn. “I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never even considered trying to hurt anyone in your life.”

It took a bit for you to get your somersaulting stomach under control, but even then you didn’t pull your hand away from him. “I’d say Pepper Potts is in some serious trouble,” you muttered, which only made him snort with laughter.

Since you began working from home, you’d almost never done a full eight hours of work in a single day. There wasn’t really much need for you to. When you were home, instead of in the middle of the office being distracted by everyone and everything, you could get a full day’s work done in almost half the time. And your boss wasn’t even really expecting full days of work from anybody, anyway! But today, faced with the choice between throwing yourself into your work and risking catching Loki’s eye for yet another compliment, you found plenty for yourself to take care of. When you were finally finished, Loki was nowhere to be seen. He’d been kind of neglected today, which you felt a little bad about, but he’d mostly brought it on himself, hadn’t he? If he could just have acted normal, maybe things could have _been_ normal. 

Tonight was his turn to cook dinner, which made you send out a quick prayer of thankfulness. If it’d been your turn, you couldn’t shake the feeling that there was absolutely no way that he’d actually allow you to cook anything. Already you were kind of dreading the fight over the dishes. It was getting kind of late in the evening, and you could hear him puttering around in the kitchen, so you stuck your head in to check on him. 

“There’s my lovely, devoted public servant now,” Loki called out without even looking over his shoulder. You were tempted to hide yourself in your room.

“Please stop,” you said quietly. “I mean it. I don’t need you to do all this for me. I can feel your love for me in your hands when you touch me. You don’t need to make a big deal out of this. I don’t like it.” You traced some of the texture in the paint on the wall so you wouldn’t have to see whether Loki had turned to look at you. “Anyway, what if you spoil me and I come to expect all this stuff? You’re setting a bad precedent for yourself.”

He came over, then, and took you into his arms. “It would be an honor to remind you of these things every day of your life,” he whispered. There was a weight to his words. He was serious. You fought the urge to squirm out of his arms and instead hid your face in his chest. This was all you really wanted. You like it when he held you, when he let you hear the steady beat of his heart. The two of you stood like that for a long time, holding each other. Listening to each other. He pressed his lips to the top of your head. “I’ll cut back a bit. But even a god cannot unbake a cake.”

Sure enough, he’d baked a small cake for you. And he did reel himself in. Your dinner conversation was much less waxing poetic about all your various virtues and more...normal. You laughed together, listened to one another with fierce attention. It was good. He didn’t try to sing to you before cutting into the cake, and you definitely didn’t bring it up before taking a bite. 

Much later that night, when you were half-dozing against him on the couch, he tightened his arm around you and kissed your temple. “I’ve one more, darling,” he said in a low voice. “Can you take one more?”

You sighed sleepily and rubbed your face against his chest as you thought it over. It was probably past midnight. If you really didn’t want to hear it, you could always just remind him that your birthday was over. But he’d done so well for you at dinner. What was one more silly compliment, in the grand scheme of things. “One more,” you finally agreed, and hid your face against him just as a preventative measure. “Hit me.”

“You are so important to me.” His words were heavy again, not airy and fanciful as they’d been for most of the day. “So important. Every day you share your home with me and you look at me like I belong here. And it makes me feel like I do. You have helped me become more than who I was before. With you, I am not just my past. You let me see a future, love, and I cannot say what that has done for me.” He went quiet for a long time, and you tightened your arms around him. You knew that it wasn’t easy for him to talk about himself like that. _That_ meant more to you than maybe every single coerced “girls’ night” and birthday party. You blinked back your tears and held him until your arms trembled.

“I love you,” you whispered raggedly against him, trusting that somehow your words would make it to his ears. They did. You felt him laugh once, quietly, and then kiss the top of your head. Inspiration struck you, then, and you pulled back to meet his eyes with a mischievous glint of your own. “Do you know about the Midgardian tradition of birthday sex?”


End file.
